How to Handle Extreme Negativity When You’re Caught in a Downward Spiral of the Soul

Through most of my life, I lived in a dark dark way.

I was moody, negative, socially inept and regularly felt angst. Especially in my teens.

Probably didn’t help that I took to grunge music, like Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden even though I loved it back then in the 90s.

(Still awesome music though!)

So I am a MASTER of falling into downward, dark spirals of the soul and mind.

How about you?

Feel like a dark master, too, sometimes?

I was talking to a client the other day, and reviewing his Results Report.

Even though he’s been making great progress in taking action, and it was all there in the report, he felt he stopped making progress inside.

This is what we call a “setback.”

What is a setback?

A setback is when you have been making great progress (and he has, not just in taking action but internally with his mindset as well) but you don’t FEEL like you have made any.

In fact, you may even feel WORSE than you did before.

Why?

Because the gap between where you were and where you are now has widened.

You’ve been more positive than ever.

You’re thinking new good things about people and about yourself.

You are feeling more free and relaxed.

And then…

WHAM!

You are SLAMMED by your old, socially anxious self.

And it doesn’t want you to move forward, oh no.

It wants you to go right back to the negative grooves you were living in before.

And what you are experiencing is the CONTRAST between that old self and your new self. You are feeling that gap even more intensely.

You might even have thoughts like my client did of “wow, now that I’m feeling so positive, I’ll never get into a bad mood again.”

Big mistake, unfortunately.

And you know what, it’s not his (or your) fault. It happens to everyone.

You must be strong, and keep calm and carry on. As much as you can at least.

You must do whatever it takes to hold on, keep your head up, or just surrender until you pop out of it.

There is no right way, but those are some of the main moves you can do. My client, he’ll be fine he’s got me by his side to help him every step of the way.

Of course, without the right understanding and tool belt it is a lot harder to do that. There are plenty of posts and videos on my YouTube channel to help you with that. A lot of them are about how to get over social anxiety and shyness, dealing with it and of course handling setbacks.

Like this one on my channel:

(Don’t forget to subscribe to the YouTube Channel- if you haven’t already.)

Keep on, keepin’ on. Through setbacks and all!

-David